EYES ON THE PRIZE Mississippi, Is This America, 1962-1964

episode 5

Focuses on the extraordinary personal risks faced by ordinary citizens as they assumed responsibility for social change, particularly during the 1962-64 voting rights campaign in Mississippi. The state became a testing ground of constitutional principles as civil rights activists concentrated their energies on the right to vote. White resistance to the sharing of political power clashed with the strong determination of movement leaders to bring Mississippi blacks to the ballot box. In Freedom Summer 1964, tension between white resistance and movement activists climaxed in the tragic murder of three young civil rights workers.